Director / Writer Dana Ziyasheva Talks About 'Defenders of Life'
Director Dana Ziyasheva made her directorial debut, 'Defenders of Life' which focuses on the Ngäbe community, and the hardships Ngäbe girls faced in Costa Rica.

Abstract video art created in 1979. Video and audio by Dean Winkler, Glenn Van Alstyne, Tom Lucke, Elaine Lewis, and Brian Aitchison. Chirp-1 / Quantel was created in two separate effects passes: At the RPI Video Synthesizer Lab an old porno tape (on stock that was donated to us) was processed using an analog Serge modular music synthesizer to sequence the sounds and control the colorization of an analog Hern video synthesizer. The sounds are also inserted into the video, which are the stripes you see, changing with frequency. The tape from the first pass was taken to EUE Video and used to seed an analog feedback loop around a Quantel 5000 digital effects device.
Director Dana Ziyasheva made her directorial debut, 'Defenders of Life' which focuses on the Ngäbe community, and the hardships Ngäbe girls faced in Costa Rica.
Attack of the Killer Tomatoes: Organic Intelligence is not merely the fourth sequel in a cult classic film about a delicious vegetable apocalypse: it’s a love letter to slapstick, sight gags, and the original 1978 film. It’s also a meta-comedy, spy-thriller parody taking place in a world where the original film series was a documentary about the horrors of the Tomato War that the government covered up by convincing everyone it was a comedy. Taking place in 2026, Organic Intelligence sees genetically modified tomatoes grown out of control and rising up to attack humanity again - luckily, Agent Maria Sifuentes (Myrna Velasco) of the Federal Vegetable Investigation Bureau is there to uncover the corporate conspiracy behind it, and she won’t take no for an answer.
Vicenza, a Brazilian girl, goes on a quest by herself to find out who her birth father is by gathering clues.
The differences in these films could not be more blatant, and yet Gus Van Sant has found a way to portray the same messages and use the same techniques in each.
Kat Wahlen’s The Whiteboard tells, or rather shows, a delightful love story between two young women who meet in detention.
While it is more than established that Halston’s life is far from a fairytale, the narrative suffers as a result of the decision to revolve more around sex and drugs than his artistry, it likely does a disservice to his cultural impact by pulling focus from his achievements.